The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments

Kaivan Munshi () and Mark Rosenzweig ()
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Kaivan Munshi: Brown University
Mark Rosenzweig: Yale University

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: Parochial politics is typically associated with poor leadership and low levels of public good provision. This paper explores the possibility that community involvement in politics need not necessarily worsen governance and, indeed, can be efficiency enhancing when the context is appropriate. Complementing the new literature on the role of community networks in solving market problems, we test the hypothesis that strong traditional social institutions can discipline the leaders they put forward, successfully substituting for secular political institutions when they are ineffective. Using new data on Indian local governments at the ward level over multiple terms, and exploiting the randomized election reservation system, we find that the presence of a numerically dominant sub caste (caste equilibrium) is associated with the selection of leaders with superior observed characteristics and with greater public good provision. This improvement in leadership competence occurs without apparently diminishing leaders' responsiveness to their constituency.

Keywords: politics; commitment; governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H44 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-pbe and nep-pol
Date: 2008-09
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egc:wpaper:964

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